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Saturday, October 2, 2010

Historical Name Game

In the past I have brought you my all-star teams for football and baseball composed of the greatest names in the current game. Today we will travel back to the past for Part One of a several part series detailing the greatest names in the one hundred year plus history of Major League Baseball. Without further unnecessary bullshit intro here is the starting nine for players with last names starting with A, B, or C:

1b: Davey Crockett - Davey was king of the wild frontier, fought at the Alamo, and even found time to compile twenty nine hits for the 1901 Detroit Tigers.

2b: Putsy Caballero - Putsy, real name Ralph (is that worse than Putsy, why would he accept this nickname) played several years in the 40s and 50s for Philadelphia's Phillies.

SS: Creepy Crespi - a Cardinal during the early years of World War II, Creepy doesn't actually look as Creepy as Birdie Cree (pictured above, he did not make the team - hopefully he won't bring his zombie ass to my house seeking vengeance), who just so happens to be the player pictured above.

3b: Jim Cockman - I'm just a sucker for a Cockman I guess. Soak that sentence in while you learn that Jim played a bit of third for the New York Highlanders back in the year nineteen aught five.

OF: Coco Crisp - a modern member of the team, I have discussed Coco in some depth before and shan't again as I bore of the subject terribly.

OF: Milton Bradley - see Coco Crisp.

OF: Frank Buttery - Frank and his buttery nipples patrolled the outfield for the Middlestown Mansfields in 1872. Damn the Baseball Encyclopedia has some obscure shit, someone will have to tell me where the hell Middlestown is and what a Mansfield might be outside of some chick from the 50s with boobs large enough to disrupt the Earth's orbit.

C: Matt Batts - such a baseball appropriate name, I had to give Matt,a backstop for several teams in the 40s and 50s, the nod over runner-up Hick Cady.

Utility: Stubby Clapp - possibly my favorite name of all time the Clapp had a short stint with the Cardinals ten years back.

P: Emil "Hill Billy" Bildilli - if it weren't for the existence of the Big Unit, this WWII era Browns pitcher would have questionably the greatest baseball nickname of all time.

P: Jung Bong - such a short career for this guy, who must have gone into Ricky Williams-like retirement, that he has never made my all name team despite pitching for the Braves just a few years back. Let's hope he comes back for another hit or two.

P: Boof Bonser - see Milton Bradley.

P: Sugar Cain - Sugar's real name was Merritt so you can understand him being okay with a nickname so corny Coke could use the run-off as syrup for their sodas for time eternal. He pitched for three teams in the 1930s American League if you give a fuck.

P: Phil Collins - Phil, a national leaguer who toed the rubber for three clubs in the 20s and 30s was born long before the singer, so you can understand if he does not want to change it - because he's not the one who sucks.

Ultimate UT: George "Nig" Cuppy - Cuppy could play the field and pitched quite well, racking up twenty wins for several years as a Cleveland Spider mound man. The 1890s were different times however, and Cuppy seems from his picture to have earned his nickname from the fact that he was, oh let's say, a bit ethnic during a period when blacks were not allowed to play professional baseball. I guess he just slipped in under the "just a good tan" rule.